Using technology in schools

2. Being able to use technology to help the students learn different ways. 3. This to me would be using more than just the paper, pencil and books.

4. Virtual schooling is using technology in your lessons. VS is replica of face-to-face school online (3 out of 20)

1. Teaching traditional classroom activities over the internet.

2. I would define 'virtual schooling' as taking classes over the internet (watching lectures online and submitting grades via the Internet.) 3. Virtual schooling is the incorporation of things that can be done in the

classroom, but are more convenient online.. VS is learning at leisure (1 out of 20)

There is no true classroom for lessons, and students can receive instruction at their leisure along with assignment/exam guidelines and/or due-dates.

VS is for abled students (1 out of 20)

I would define "Virtual Schools" as a school that uses technology to the most able.

1. Technology becomes a teacher’s surrogate: These responses indicated VS technology takes over or minimizes the role of a classroom teacher. This finding is

consistent with the findings by Compton ,Davis and Mackey (2009). In their qualitative study, one of the two preservice teachers mentioned that before learning about VS, she had doubts about teacher-student communication in VS. However, it is known a teacher plays a vital role in VS (Davis & Roblyer, 2005; Harms et al., 2006; Rice, 2006; Rice et al., 2008; Davis & Rose, 2007), and many professional institutes like NACOL, NEA, and SCERB have time and again released guidelines on how to teach an online class in a K-12 setting. Also, Kapitzke and Pendergast (2005) found that teachers‘ technological skills can actually affect student dropout rates in VS. Thus, in VS technology, taking the place of a teacher stands as a preconception

2. VS is a curriculum or a tool: Instead of acknowledging VS as a schooling system, some preservice teachers perceived VS as a curriculum, or a tool. This emphasis on technology ignores other components of VS: teachers, facilitators, administrators, designers, connecting schools, and students at each of the connecting schools (Davis et al., 2005; Davis and Rose, 2007).

3. VS aims to teach technology to students: Meta analysis by Roblyer and Davis (2008) found that many studies have documented technology access, skills, and absence of technological problems as strong predictors to students success in VS. Thus,

technology serves as an important tool in VS, but learning technology is not, per se, an aim of VS.

4. VS is a replica of face-to-face school online: A majority of the preservice teachers‘ VS definitions described VS as school on computer or the Internet. Some responses also indicated VS involved transferring the traditional teaching and learning tools into an electronic mode. Similar findings were documented for online learning, in general, by Kanuka and Kelland (2008) that learners and practitioners try to replicate the face-to-face and old distance learning (non-technology) modes into the e-learning

environment. Similarly, Li and Akins (2005) in their study also pointed out it is a myth that traditional learning can be copied to online learning. Since online learning uses an asynchronous mode, face-to-face pedagogies cannot be replicated in an online

asynchronous mode. VS, on the other hand, involves an online mode for K-12 students; thus, both face-to-face and general online learning should be carefully scrutinized if it is to be adapted in VS.

Quantitative analyses: These preconceptions were derived from the preservice teachers‘ perceived competence in VS. Although no VS-related intervention was conducted and considering that TEGIVS was the pioneering intervention in North America educating preservice teachers in the area of VS, 32% of the preservice teachers indicated they were competent facilitating students in VS, 22% of the preservice teachers indicated they were competent teaching VS courses, and 18% of the preservice teachers indicated they were competent designing VS courses.

Furthermore, these competence ratings were analyzed by the preservice teachers‘ year of college. Preservice teachers‘ competence to facilitate, teach, and design in VS was compared with their year of college. Descriptive statistics and correlations were

administered for each competence separately.

Competence to facilitate students in VS: 35% of freshmen, 35% of sophomore, 25% of juniors, and 18% of seniors indicated that they were competent (somewhat or very competent) facilitating students in VS. This descending percentage from sophomore to senior also shows a downward trend in the self-report ratings on competence. It could be that as preservice teachers gain more experience in teacher education programs, their perceived competence to facilitate students in VS becomes more realistic. This finding is consistent with the findings and claims of Weinstein (1988), Feiman-Nemer et al. (1989), Richards and Killen (1994), and Whitbeck (2000) that preservice teachers enter teacher

education with the preconception that teaching is easy and are overconfident about their future teaching performance.

Competence to teach in VS: 24% of freshmen, 20% of sophomores, 22% of juniors, and 25% of seniors indicated they were competent to teach in VS. Unlike competence to facilitate students, competence to teach in VS did not show a decrease in competence ratings from freshmen/sophomores to seniors. More seniors rated themselves competent to teach than they did for competence to facilitate in VS. Seniors exposure to student field teaching in their senior year could have made them perceive higher

competence in teaching, in general. Lack of exposure to teaching in VS could have lead them to overgeneralize competencies required in face-to-face classrooms as similar to those required in VS. This is consistent with the commentaries made by VS and online learning scholars that regular (face-to-face) teachers think online teaching is similar to teaching online (Rose & Davis, 2007; Wood, 2005; Darling, 2000).

Competence to design VS courses: 14% of freshmen, 19% of sophomore, 16% of juniors, and 33% of seniors indicated that they were competent in designing VS courses. Again, the seniors were not likely to be exposed to designing a VS course. Their

indication of competence could be again related to their exposure to competence in designing courses or lessons in face-to-face teaching. This again could be related to overgeneralizing the competencies in face-to-face schooling to those in VS. However, designing an online course is different than designing a face-to-face course, designing an online course is a labor intensive task (Goodyear et al., 2001), and may involve other stakeholders like instructional designers or content experts (Harms et al., 2006).

Figure 1 shows the negative or downward trend between year of college and competence

ratings.

Figure 1. Trend between year of college and competence ratings

Although all three competencies show a downward trend, the correlation analyses show a significant negative correlation only for facilitating competence (See Table 6). Table 6: Correlations Between Competencies and Year in College

Competence Year in College

How competent do you think you are to counsel or guide students who are considering taking Virtual School courses?

Pearson Correlation -.173*

Sig. (2-tailed) .019

N 182

How competent do you think you are to teach Virtual School courses?

Pearson Correlation -.122

Sig. (2-tailed) .102

N 182

How competent do you think you are to design Virtual School courses?

Pearson Correlation -.081

Sig. (2-tailed) .276

N 182

*p< 0.05 level

In summary, the preconceptions—teaching as a profession is easy and that teacher competencies in face-to-face teaching is similar to that in VS—could have led the

freshmen and seniors to rate themselves competent in VS facilitation and

teaching/designing, respectively. A majority (53%) of those who rated themselves as competent on facilitation, teaching, and designing VS indicated they would like teacher education to integrate VS. This reiterates their need to learn competence in VS.